Supreme Court gets five new judges

New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Friday got five new judges, taking its total strength to 28.

They were administered the oath of office by the Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar.

The top court got the new judges after a gap of nine months, as the last judge to be sworn in was Justice L. Nageswara Rao on May 13, 2016.

With the swearing in of Justice Sanjay Kishnan Kaul, Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer, Justice Navin Sinha and Justice Deepak Gupta, the apex court now falls short by only three judges against its sanctioned strength of 31.

The top court will soon have three more vacancies as Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, Chief Justice Khehar and Justice Prafulla C. Pant would retire this year.

At the time of their elevation as judges of the apex court, Justice Kaul was the Chief Justice of Madras High Court; Justice Sinha, the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court; Justice Shantanagoudar, the Chief Justice of Kerala High Court; Justice Gupta was the Chief Justice of Chhattisgarh High Court; and Justice Nazeer was serving as a Karnataka High Court judge.